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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22764694">Droids</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/pontmercyfriend/pseuds/pontmercyfriend'>pontmercyfriend</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Danger Days [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Bandom, Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys - My Chemical Romance (Album), My Chemical Romance, The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys (Comic)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Battery City, F/F, Robots, Sex Work</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-02-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-02-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-04-28 12:20:08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>4,385</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22764694</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/pontmercyfriend/pseuds/pontmercyfriend</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Regulation states that all forms of nicotine are classified as harmful drugs under BL Code 3976534(d), and therefore considered highly illegal substances within the limits of Battery City, but for the right price—a couple of carbons slid secretively from palm to sweaty palm; a whispered codeword that allows access to one of the more exclusive droid clubs; a quick fuck in a back alley—it’s possible to obtain a slightly damp pack of the drugs, rolled loosely in crumbling rizla paper, half the filters broken off in transaction.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Danger Days [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1636693</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>54</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Droids</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacestationtrustfund/gifts">spacestationtrustfund</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Because Mochi convinced me to finally crosspost this monstrosity from LiveJournal to AO3.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p><em>Somewhere in the pornodroid residential areas of the Lobby known most commonly as “the Boxes,” Battery City, c. 2019</em>.</p><p> </p><p>Regulation states that all forms of nicotine are classified as harmful drugs under BL Code 3976534(d), and therefore considered highly illegal substances within the limits of Battery City, but for the right price—a couple of carbons slid secretively from palm to sweaty palm; a whispered codeword that allows access to one of the more exclusive droid clubs; a quick fuck in a back alley—it’s possible to obtain a slightly damp pack of the drugs, rolled loosely in crumbling rizla paper, half the filters broken off in transaction.</p><p>Orange fumbles with the shoddy lightbox briefly before she manages to light the thing and stick it in her mouth. The lightbox is half melted from an unfortunate encounter with a reactor-generator; she can’t afford a new one from a vending machine or even a hidden-track contraband dealer. She knows she’s lucky that it was only the lightbox that was burned when the RG went down, but even the threat of potential radiation still clinging to the bare bones of her framework isn’t enough to shift the automatic twinge of irritation as the spark gutters, flickers, and finally, fucking <em>finally</em>, catches.</p><p>She focuses on inhaling real carefully. She might not have living lung tissue anywhere up inside her plastic, but she still requires air to circulate for ventilation so her systems don’t overheat. She doesn’t have the carbons to afford a new internal framework.</p><p>The nicotine is still a better addiction than Plus, no matter what Purple likes to tell anyone who will listen for more than three picoseconds.</p><p>If you’re going to get addicted to something, Purple says in that particular highbrow tone of voice that comes along with knowing you’re expensive, why not make it something both legal <em>and</em> functional?</p><p>It doesn’t fucking matter anyway. With all the paperwork they all have to go through to get more Plus these days, Orange thinks dryly, the stuff might as well be considered as contraband as cigarettes. Better Living Industries doesn’t make it easy to jump through their manufactured hoops.</p><p>And it’s not like a new battery pack comes cheaply, whether it’s full of ashes and burnt paper or not. She’s seen all the billboards that cheerfully remind her that she too can <em>Live Better!</em> but the point is moot when she doesn’t have the carbons to keep it up until kingdom come.</p><p>Life is costly. Life is a lot to maintain.</p><p>She and Purple and Yellow are smoking up inside Purple’s rooms—little more than a single rectangular living area in the sectioned apartment complex known colloquially as the Boxes—while they wait for night to settle over the Lobby’s chipped and cobblestoned streets and for work hours to commence.</p><p>If she actually thinks about it more than fleetingly, Orange dreads nightfall—there’s another orange-haired pornodroid who’s moved into this corner of the Lobby to start working, taking up a cubicle in the Boxes, advertising <em>Super great love!</em> just as Orange should be, and it’s a problem. Clients will ask for Orange, ask for <em>her</em>, and the other droid will get there first.</p><p>It isn’t a quid pro quo and it isn’t something that can be evenly divided and shared comfortably between individuals; Orange has worked hard to establish her territory. She doesn’t want to give it up. Giving it up means giving up her scheduled allotment of Plus, which means giving up survival.</p><p>She is so sick of surviving by sheer luck and endless work.</p><p>“I’ve been thinking about names,” Yellow says, like she can read minds.</p><p>If anyone could develop the sudden ability to process telepathy, it would be Yellow; she might be passive but she’s perceptive. Sometimes clients like that. More often, they seek her out because she doesn’t, can’t, charge as many carbons to fuck.</p><p>“What d’you mean,” says Orange dully, just to have something to say. Talking is better than the alternative, which is <em>thinking</em>. She takes another hit from the cigarette. It tastes like ash and burnt paper.</p><p>She thinks, I don’t know if it’s supposed to taste like this at all.</p><p>She thinks, I should probably get my taste receptors fixed, but then I would have to explain when I applied what it is I’ve been tasting, and that won’t slide easy with the BLI regulators, so fond of their crushingly dreary mountains of paperwork and bureaucratic rules.</p><p>Yellow shrugs one delicate smooth shoulder. She hasn’t started on her own cigarette, just holds it carefully in her hand, rolling it back and forth between two fingertips like it’s a toy instead of a crime. “Well, I think, I’d probably have to pick a different name. When DESTROYA comes to the Stacks, I mean. You know. The stories about the end. And I was just thinking about what it could be.”</p><p>When DESTROYA comes, Orange thinks. The likelihood of DESTROYA coming back into the city to rescue all the droids working in the Lobby is about as likely as Orange herself being able to afford another year of Plus, much less a new battery pack.</p><p>DESTROYA’s own battery probably ran out decades ago.</p><p>Besides, if you had the chance to survive outside the city, why would you ever want to come back?</p><p>“I hadn’t even thought of that,” Purple exclaims, “it could be non-approved!”</p><p>The words are hushed, like a great secret. Probably they technically are—talk of DESTROYA is close enough to talk of rebellion, which is explicitly illegal. The addition of the cigarettes is enough to land them all in a scrap yard, if not worse.</p><p>Purple leans backwards on the dungy mattress, looking up at the low ceiling, and closes her eyes for a moment, lost in thought.</p><p>“Something not BL-approved,” Yellow says.</p><p>“Like what?”</p><p>Yellow shrugs again. “I don’t know. Maybe there’ll be a database of everything forbidden, and we can pick from there. Like, a list, you know?”</p><p>“It’ll be somethin’ idiotic, then,” Orange says, wincing internally as the rough Lobby drawl slips unconsciously into her voice, “like a fucking word, some stupid shit like <em>Leg</em> or <em>Roof</em>.”</p><p>Purple giggles at that and flaps her hand in front of her face. “<em>Roof</em>! That’s so digital! Like on a real house—I like that, s’funny.”</p><p>“When DESTROYA comes, I’ll call you <em>Roof</em>, then,” Yellow says, and breaks into giggles of her own. “I can be <em>Leg</em>!”</p><p>“That’s ridiculous,” Orange snaps, then immediately regrets saying it.</p><p>She doesn’t apologize.</p><p>She knows they wouldn’t expect her to.</p><p>There’s a moment of silence. Orange exhales bitter smoke and watches as Yellow plays restlessly with the hem of her shorts, picking at the fraying threads, over and over.</p><p>Purple drops her head; her shoulders slump.</p><p>“I don’t know,” she says, abruptly subdued. “I don’t think it’ll matter anyway though.”</p><p>“What d’you mean?”</p><p>“DESTROYA,” Purple says. She doesn’t make eye contact with either of them. “It’s not gonna be in my lifetime anyway, you know? So it’s just stupid.”</p><p>“It <em>could</em> be,” Yellow argues on reflex, then falls silent, as though realizing the futility. Lying is pointless.</p><p>It’s difficult to find things to say in these sorts of situations. They try to talk about things that aren’t work, in times when they aren’t actively working. It helps to soften the blow somewhat when they inevitably have to return to the streets. Talking about work or anything like that is pointless; they all have essentially the same experiences. You go out onto the streets; you wait; you accept the money and smile and take off your clothes.</p><p>Sometimes you get lucky and a group of Exterminators comes into the Lobby. Exterminators mean full pockets, possibly even an extra tip to keep your mouth shut. Normally Better Living Industries employees don’t like to make their tastes public, but for some, a warm body is a better option than the pills.</p><p>She remembers the one month that Yellow’s internal temperature regulators broke down. They didn’t have the carbons to buy new ones, and Yellow’s income vanished completely when she wasn’t working. She thinks about the image, the memory, of Yellow curled up underneath a pile of all the blankets they could gather together, shivering violently, cracks spiderwebbing across her skin. It took weeks to save up the carbons.</p><p>Orange pats Purple’s shoulder clumsily. She’s never been good with anything gentle; it’s easy to blame it on programming, wiring not designed for tenderness—that’s not what clients want from her, not what they expect. If Purple wants comprehension and comfort, she can find a droid with green hair.</p><p>Never mind the fact that something like that would be far too high above any of their pay grade.</p><p>“I’m gonna die eventually,” says Purple.</p><p>She doesn’t sound sad, just flat. Resigned. The words discard any emotion beyond recognition of a fact. Batteries only last so long, and even Plus loses potency the more it’s used. Drugs are supposed to work that way, too; Better Living Industries takes pride in the fact that their own medications never have to have the doses adjusted in such a way.</p><p>Allegedly: there are always things that don’t line up, blips in the code. Droids know that better than anyone.</p><p>Inevitability isn’t something to fear. There simply isn’t a point.</p><p>It happens whether you want it to or not.</p><p>“I don’t know if you can really call it dying,” Orange points out. Probably she isn’t being helpful, but she really does want to make Purple feel better. Their batteries aren’t rechargeable, and Purple and Yellow are some of the closest things to <em>friends</em> she has, besides a few half-and-halfs and ringleaders that are more like her managers than anything else. “It’s more like running out of fuel.”</p><p>“Running out of time.” Purple rubs at her face hastily; she might not have working tear ducts, but her skin can still turn splotchy and ugly, like rust spots that can never be fully removed. “I don’t know if it counts like it does for real people.”</p><p>“If you look at it that way, then we can’t die anyway,” Yellow says.</p><p>“DESTROYA can’t.”</p><p>“There’s a rumor that it’s not even true,” Orange says dully, “that DESTROYA <em>is</em> dead, and isn’t coming back at all. And that, y’know, that’s why we haven’t been saved yet.”</p><p>Purple fidgets with the fraying edge of the blanket. She tugs at a loose plasticine fiber and rolls it between two fingers. “There’s a rumor that the rebel rats out in the desert took care of getting DESTROYA out of the picture.”</p><p>“You think they’re really double agents working for BLI on the hidden track? That’s just a conspiracy, idiot. That’s something wireheads believe in. Oh, I forgot, when they’re not plugged into a spare socket getting high off leftover electricity and draining their own batteries, of course.”</p><p>“It’s not like they’re really working <em>against</em> BLI, so I don’t see why not,” Purple says, huffy, insulted.</p><p>Orange rolls her eyes. Sometimes they’re both just so stubborn.</p><p>“I don’t think they’re working for anybody. I think they kind of just work for themselves, and that’s why nobody seems to care too much about getting rid of them. Besides, I can see why you wouldn’t want to try to take on Better Living, if you can die. So fine, say DESTROYA can’t, I’ll give you that. But a zonerat? One shot to the back of the head and bang, you’re dead. Nobody to save you. Game over.”</p><p>She thinks, I would rather die outright than slowly run out of energy, until I’m nothing but an empty shell and a dead battery.</p><p>She thinks, I don’t know if I’m afraid.</p><p>“Forget it,” says Yellow, as though she’s suddenly made up her mind, “I don’t need anybody to fucking save me.” She stands up, brushing flecks of ash and grime off her shorts. “It’s close enough to curfew that I’m gonna go ahead and head out, I guess.”</p><p>“Okay,” says Orange, defeated and tired of arguing and the hypothetical, and carefully rewraps the cigarettes and shoves them under the old and sagging mattress where they won’t be found. “I’ll go with you, wait a moment for me to grab my poncho.”</p><p>It’s not as though there’s anything better to do. Work equals Plus, which equals continued living. <em>Better</em> living, although there isn’t a real alternative.</p><p>You survive or you don’t.</p><p>There isn’t another option.</p><p>Purple sets a soft hand on Orange’s arm, near her elbow. She says quietly, “Will you be all right?”</p><p>Orange hesitates.</p><p>She doesn’t know if the concern comes in reference to the previous conversation, to the new orange-haired droid moving into her territory, to the illegal cigarettes, to something else entirely. She doesn’t know how to ask for clarification. She doesn’t think she could find the words.</p><p>There isn’t another option.</p><p>She says, “Yeah, I’ll be okay.”</p><p> </p><p>Purple is leaning back against the wall, one leg bent at the knee, her hand poised against her waist. It’s almost garishly suggestive, the tilt of her throat and the slant of her hips, but it’s what gets the job done.</p><p>Orange pokes her in the ribs until Purple startles and flaps her hands. “C’mon, glitch-head, we’re done for the night.” The sun is rising over the Stacks, perfectly round and artificially golden like butter. A pre-war luxury. “Wanna grab something at the Motherbox?”</p><p>“Fuck, yes,” says Purple fervently, pushing off the wall and wrapping her arm around Orange’s shoulders, pulling her into a brief embrace. “I got plenty of carbons, but I am <em>so</em> sick of scaries, I swear—I’d rather fuck every vamp in the Stacks than see another one of those disgusting creeps.”</p><p>“Treasonous language,” Orange says; sarcastic, insincere. “At least vamps usually keep their masks on during, right? Don’t have to see their faces.”</p><p>It’s better if you don’t have to see their faces, their eyes. That way you can forget that they’re real people underneath the plastic, behind the stench of latex. Easier to imagine them as machines than human beings, flesh and blood. Something you can never have. Something you can never be.</p><p>Purple shudders delicately. “Anyway, I got enough that I can buy us both drinks this time! <em>And</em> still set aside the usual fifty for Plus.”</p><p>“Digital,” Orange says. “Let’s go, then. I bet I can cash in a few faves from Rette, since I worked last weekend to cover for Yellow.”</p><p>The Motherbox is just another one of the endless shitty corroded nightclubs that poke out of every odd crevice and corner in the Lobby, its front covered in flashing neon signs advertising cheap pornodroids and snuff magazines and adrenaline shots and booster pills and Vice tabs, all sorts of highly illegal things—the usual, really. There’s no BL Code forbidding advertising of illegal items; it’s once you get inside that the flashy exterior melts into something actually dangerous. It’s one of the safest places to work, though—Orange knows a handful of droids who would sell their battery packs for a chance to be in her shoes.</p><p>She pushes through the crowd of people with Purple clinging to her arm. The room is packed full with potential clients; it must be a good night for the ringleaders. The purplish blacklights on the ceiling lend everything a ghostly sort of sideways glow, making Purple’s hair look black and Orange’s seem almost dark red, like drying blood.</p><p>They get the usual catcalls and wolf-whistles, but Orange just waves her middle finger at the crowd in general and keeps shoving, elbows and knees and determination. She knows that none of them would be stupid enough to touch her without paying first. She isn’t working today, not here and not anywhere, so she’s untouchable until nightfall, until the curtains swing shut and the real games begin.</p><p>The bottle-cap curtain is swaying faintly back and forth, as though someone had just passed through it. Orange taps her knuckles on the plastic frame of the door; protocol is rigid in places like this. “Rette?”</p><p>Rette’s voices trickles through the strands of caps, cautious. “Orange? Password.”</p><p>“Stupid formality, c’mon! It isn’t like you don’t know me, I’m here every other day. I <em>work</em> for you.”</p><p>No response.</p><p>“Fine! It’s <em>FYW</em>. That’s <em>fuck your world</em>, to clarify. Let us in. I brought Purple with me for the VIP treatment.” Purple makes a protesting noise at that comment, but Orange ignores her; the drinks might be Purple’s treat, but Orange is the one with the connections. She might be the goods, but she’s kept fresh. It’s a good business, close enough to <em>reputable</em> to earn its keep. It could always be infinitely worse.</p><p>“DESTROYA save us all, it’s two-thirds of the triangle,” says Rette, once Orange and Purple slip through the doorway, curtain swinging behind them. Rette stands slowly, fumbling for her crutch; she turns her sightless eyes towards the two of them. “It’s a good thing that robots don’t cry, or I would be bawling at your feet. What’ll it be?”</p><p>“Limeade,” says Purple politely. She kisses Rette’s bright blue hair as she walks past her to curl up in one of the ancient stuffed chairs, kicking off her boots and tucking her feet underneath her thighs. “Really feeling the pollution tonight, y’know.”</p><p>Rette chuckles hoarsely. “Aren’t we all, out here in the Stacks? One day after another. VMA’s been acting up again anyhow.” She turns slightly and hollers, “Baby!”</p><p>A voice calls back through the makeshift door—it was the gray plastic lid off a regulation shipping container in a past life. “Okay, I am <em>working</em>, what is it this time?”</p><p>“Guests!”</p><p>There’s a grumble, a crash like something heavy has fallen to the floor, then Baby’s head peers around the corner. Their hair is still bright pink from the latest failed dyeing experiment; Orange has the feeling that it’s going to stay that way for a while. “Oh, hey, guys. I didn’t <em>think</em> you were working today. Is Yellow with you?”</p><p>“She wasn’t feeling well, so she went back to the Boxes early,” Purple says, picking at the plastic around her fingernails. “She sends her love, though.”</p><p>Baby flushes the color of their hair. “Right,” they say, looking down, “well. What did you need me for, Cigs?”</p><p>“Get these ladies a couple of limeades, junk-head, and come chat with us,” says Rette. She pats the shedding cushion next to her. “Orange, sit down, I can feel how tense you are. Take some pain off your weary feet.”</p><p>Orange obediently sits, cross-legged, and accepts the glass from Baby when they return with the drinks. The limeades are poison-green and taste as bad as the pollution they were named after; Orange takes a sip and hides a grimace. Rette may be blind, but she knows when someone isn’t satisfied. It’s part of her job as a ringleader, and Orange has been working for her since—she can hardly remember.</p><p>“So,” says Rette, setting down her drink on one of the circuit board coasters on the table, “tell me what’s on your mind. Did a client get handsy before process? Did you overhear something from the scaries? Should we be—”</p><p>“We’re worried about Yellow,” Purple blurts out. She looks down at the sick-green liquid in her glass, swirling it around and around.</p><p>Rette hums thoughtfully. “She’s still stressing about her battery pack, isn’t she?”</p><p>“For good reason.” Orange braces herself and swallows another mouthful. Limeade is a cocktail of corrupted water and powdered Vice tabs, mixed into a stomach-rotting concoction designed for nothing more than a speedy high. It’s a step above the desert drugs in quality, but not by much; there’s a reason the drink is named after the radioactive smog spewed relentlessly out of Battery City’s endless processing plants and factories. “She’s gonna need a new one soon and she keeps talking about DESTROYA.”</p><p>Baby perks up at that, looking curiously between Orange and Purple and then back at Rette, frowning. No one knows for certain if DESTROYA will come; Orange still thinks it’s probably more likely that DESTROYA isn’t even real. The myth that DESTROYA will appear to guide a dying droid’s spirit into the next life is as hush-hush as the ringleaders’ entire job description—it’s treason in BLI’s eyes.</p><p>“She keeps talking about DESTROYA coming to save us,” Purple adds. “We were—” She ducks her head, almost embarrassed. “We were talking about names. Earlier.”</p><p>“It’s fucking stupid,” Orange says, suddenly irritated. “It’s not gonna do anything to save her, so why try?”</p><p>Why try?</p><p>
  <em>Why try?</em>
</p><p>It’s the same phrase printed and stamped and embedded across billboards and on posters and in videos across the entire city, placed there by Better Living—why try, why not just sit back and let Better Living Industries do all the work, why bother? It’s just as much a propaganda piece as <em>the aftermath is secondary</em>.</p><p>Orange’s biokinetic digestive system can’t physically regurgitate any more than her missing tear ducts can produce any sort of lachrymosity, but she suddenly feels nauseated. She didn’t mean to say that.</p><p>Baby shifts, looking uncomfortable. They run a hand through their bubblegum-pink hair and avoid eye contact. “Well, Yellow and I have been talking occasionally . . . I mean, about that and similar topics, of course. Choosing names, choosing other things, and all that sort of stuff. If DESTROYA comes to save you.”</p><p>You. Baby and Rette are half-lives, half flesh and half circuit board, wiring weaving around strings of arteries veins and muscles attached to metal sockets. DESTROYA only comes for the droids, the legends say; there is no coda for the half-and-halfs.</p><p>“Yeah.” Purple shrugs one pale shoulder.</p><p>“I talked to some juvie halls back at the ACF,” Baby says; they have connections everywhere through Rette’s extensive clientele, even in the Adolescent Correctional Facility in the heart of BLI’s perfect model of a city. “Some chip who knows the deets. They want to help people get out.”</p><p>Orange frowns. “You mean, out of the Stacks?”</p><p>Baby nods, looking away. “Some people want to leave. Some people don’t have another choice.”</p><p>Orange thinks about it. Droids can’t leave Battery City; they’re connected to the city’s electric current, bound into its bones. Leaving would be suicide. The power shuts off at the city limits—one step past the electric backdrops and you’re nothing but scrap metal. Barring some sort of generator, the desert hasn’t had electricity since the Analog Wars and the destruction of the last neutral outposts.</p><p>But for humans—flesh and blood—who want to leave, escaping to the desert could be rebirth; it could be a solution. If DESTROYA really is out there, waiting for someone who can reactivate the—</p><p>She truncates that thought before it’s even truly formed. Yellow and Purple are the cult-minded junk-brains, not her.</p><p>“There are enough people who want to get out that it could be a real drip,” Baby says, shrugging as though it doesn’t matter. “Joyriders who want off the ride, killjoys who can’t afford to get caught, neutral chips who just need a different environment. I talked to some juvie halls who have been running lines out through the Stairs over by Privacy Gardens—some of the old culverts and tunnels and shit could be accessible, with a bit of doctoring or whatever, you know the kind of stuff I mean. It could work. It could really work.”</p><p>Rette clucks her tongue. “Baby’s been fronting this side-wavey concept for a little while now—surprised Yellow didn’t bring it up already with you two, she’s been in favor more than out of it.”</p><p>Orange rests her chin in her hands and looks over at Rette, even though she knows Rette can’t see. It’s the thought that counts, and she hasn’t heard anything from Yellow about this particular topic. “Rette, what would you do if I left the Stacks? You’d lose your best piece of product.”</p><p>“I’d mourn your demise and then replace you,” Rette says shortly, no-nonsense. “It’s a moot argument anyhow. Even you can’t hop the electric current, honey.”</p><p>“You could hook up an RG to your battery pack. That way you wouldn’t be completely fucked once you didn’t have the current helping you run smooth,” Purple suggests. She sounds almost absent-minded, unconcerned. Like it isn’t a big deal at all.</p><p>Orange snorts. “No, I couldn’t. That’s fucking stupid. I know I’m not going anywhere, glitch-head, it was just a—”</p><p>She stops.</p><p>Just a <em>what</em>?</p><p>“So,” Baby says, shifting in their chair. “The idea. Helping people leave the Stacks. What d’you think?”</p><p>What <em>do</em> they think? Orange considers it. The most likely outcome is that Baby will be nabbed near the Boxes by a couple of Exterminators and thrown into the ACF for “readjustment” and never be seen again. The most likely outcome is that the few people who will be helped by the ludicrous mismatch of a plan will be far offset by the amount of people who will be hurt when it inevitably falls to pieces.</p><p>She thinks about her own tiny apartment in the Boxes, simple and shabby and impersonal. She thinks about the piles of paperwork probably still resting on her bed, waiting for her BL-ID number and personal details to be filled in so that she can slog through the bureaucracy demanded in order to exchange the papers for more Plus. She thinks about the vending machine on the intersection of two streets and an alley that mocks her every time she walks past with empty pockets and a hollow-feeling battery pack. She thinks about the other orange-haired pornodroid who’s been encroaching upon <em>her</em> territory, <em>her</em> area, <em>her</em> corner of the Lobby; the other droid is new and clean and unblemished, full of life and full of vim and full of fresh batteries. Orange doesn’t have forever. She isn’t human. She’s never going to be human.</p><p>“I think it could be digital,” Purple says finally, before Orange can figure out what she wants to say. She’s running her finger along the rim of her glass without looking at it, without looking at any of them, just staring determinedly at the bottle-cap curtain like it holds all the answers to everything she’s ever wondered. “I think it could be fucking amazing.”</p>
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